Tree Frog Forestry News

Daily Archives: February 3, 2016

Business & Politics

Crofton Mill accident victim identified

Victoria Times Colonist

February 2, 2016

Category: Business & Politics

Region: Canada, Canada West

The B.C. Coroners Service has identified 62-year-old Brian Norman Allen as the man who died in a Jan. 27 incident at Catalyst Paper’s Crofton mill. Allen, a heavy-machine operator, was using a bulldozer to pile up hog fuel — made up of debris, usually bark — when the machine fell off the high end of the pile, the coroners service said. He was found later by colleagues and was dead at the scene. The coroners service, RCMP and WorkSafe B.C. are investigating.

As of February 8, 2016, Tembec will suspend operations at its Senneterre sawmill for an indefinite period due to the persistent weakness in the North American softwood lumber market and the high cost of wood supply in the Abitibi-Témiscamingue region. This represents 148 direct jobs at Tembec. “The suspension of operations is related to the current low-selling prices of stud lumber, combined with the high cost of wood supply. While this is difficult for our employees, contractors and the communities affected, this decision is necessary to minimize losses,” said James Lopez, Tembec’s President and Chief Executive Officer. “We continue to carefully assess the evolution of market conditions and to work with the Government of Québec to find solutions to the high cost of fiber.”

Cat Forest Products in Prentice to close

Ashland Daily Press

January 29, 2016

Category: Business & Politics

Region: United States, US West

PRENTICE — Caterpillar Inc. announced that it was closing its forest products facility here as part of its global restructuring and cost reduction efforts. The move, announced in a press release on Friday, will affect approximately 220 employees at the facility in Prentice, including office and production workers as well as agency workers. Production from the facility will be moved to operations in LaGrange, Ga., and Victoria, Texas, where current employees will absorb the work The move is expected to be completed by the end of 2016. …The Prentice facility, known as Caterpillar Forest Products, makes timber-harvesting equipment that is sold primarily in North America, but also three out-of-country distributors, according to Caterpillar’s website.

S.C. forestry industry has plenty of room for growth

Clemson University

February 2, 2016

Category: Business & Politics

Region: US East, United States

BELTON — The forestry sector in South Carolina has an annual economic impact of $18.6 billion, employs more than 90,000 people, is the largest harvested crop at $759 million and is the No. 1 export commodity from the Port of Charleston at $1.5 billion. And yet, there remains plenty of room for growth. “Forestry is important to South Carolina because almost 70 percent of the forest land is owned by private individuals,” said Walt McPhail, chairman of the South Carolina Forestry Commission and president of the Greenville Forestry and Wildlife Society. “And timber is a valuable and renewable resource for the state. One of the problems we’re facing right now is that not enough of our forest land is properly managed. If we could improve our forest management even 10 percent, it would result in a tremendous increase in revenues.”

Did you buy hardwood floors from Lumber Liquidators? Tigers, leopards hope not

The Oregonian

February 2, 2016

Category: Business & Politics

Region: US East, United States

NEW YORK — Lumber Liquidators will pay more than $13 million for illegally importing hardwood flooring, after the company pleaded guilty to environmental crimes last year. The Department of Justice said that Lumber Liquidators made hardwood floors in China from illegally cut Mongolian oak trees in Russia. Those trees are needed to protect endangered Siberian tigers and Amur leopards because their prey eats the acorns from them, the Justice Department said. Lumber Liquidators, which was sentenced Monday in federal court, will pay $7.8 million in criminal fines, more than $1.2 million in community service payments and nearly $970,000 in criminal forfeiture. It will also pay about $3.2 million through a related civil forfeiture. The company also agreed to a five-year probation period.

China Has Become the Major Destination for Eucalyptus Chips from Australia with Record-High Shipments in 2015

from Wood Resources International LLC:

Businesswire Press Release

February 2, 2016

Category: Business & Politics

Region: International

SEATTLE—-Eucalyptus chip export volumes from Australia were up 15% in 2015 year-over-year to reach a record-high of 5.2 million tons, valued at almost one billion Australian dollars. Shipments have increased for three consecutive years and were in 2015 about 58% higher than they were in 2012. The major development in wood chip trade during past few years has been the increase in exports of hardwood chips to China. Back in 2010, chip shipments to China only accounted for about 13% of the total export volume from Australia. In 2015, however, more than half of the chip exports were destined for China and the country has surpassed Japan as the major destination for Australian Eucalyptus chips, as reported in the Wood Resource Quarterly (WRQ).

Wood, Paper & Green Building

Engineered products take marketshare despite falling lumber prices

Floor Focus

February 3, 2016

Category: Wood, Paper & Green Building

Region: United States

Most industry analysts predicted that this past year would be a gangbuster year for wood flooring, and to some degree, their assessments have proven to be accurate. The wood flooring segment as a whole grew by percentages in the middle teens in 2014, which represents the highest growth for the year out of all the flooring product categories. Part of the reason for this exceptional growth is the rebounding building market. Even though many experts predicted a higher rate of housing development than actually materialized, growth has been strong. In fact, at the end of July of this year, total units under construction were nearly 13% higher than at the end of July 2014. In addition to gains in new construction, the remodeling segment is expanding as well.

Projects win awards for innovative use of wood

Daily Journal of Commerce

February 3, 2016

Category: Wood, Paper & Green Building

Region: United States, US West

Nine projects won national honors and seven won regional awards in the WoodWorks 2016 Wood Design Awards. The program honors projects and teams for innovative use of wood as both a structural and finish material. Projects this year ranged from mass timber to traditional wood-frame. National projects won in nine categories. The regional projects were in seven U.S. regions designated by WoodWorks. There were over 220 nominations. Volunteer judges were Mark Ernst, partner at Engberg Anderson in Milwaukee; Lawrence Scarpa, principal at Brooks + Scarpa Architects in Los Angeles; and William Bishop, vice president at Akel Logan Shafer in Jacksonville, Florida.

UMaine scientists eye performance of Maine trees in lumber

Associated Press in Bristol Herald Courier

February 2, 2016

Category: Wood, Paper & Green Building

Region: US East, United States

ORONO, Maine — Scientists and engineers at the University of Maine are evaluating the performance of Maine trees in a kind of lumber that is used to build homes in Canada and Europe. The scientists are looking into cross-laminated timber, which is made from solid and composite lumber. They want to see how trees that grow in Maine and the northeastern U.S. perform in cross-laminated timber. The U.S. Department of Agriculture gave the university $300,000 for the work. The university says the scientists are evaluating the strength and thermal and moisture properties of the timber. The school is also testing a hybrid panel produced by Louisiana Pacific in Houlton. END OF STORY

The golf clubs building lodges overlooking their courses

Golf Club Management

February 3, 2016

Category: Wood, Paper & Green Building

Region: International

…Constructed entirely from Scots timber and laid out in a curve, each room has a unique view and privacy. The lodges have extremely high occupancy rates and are often block-booked for weddings or other group events. …“Our modular solution uses cross laminated timber as the core structural material and we believe this is an invaluable material for the future of sustainable building. The fact that we can adapt the prototype module for the hotel to be installed as an addition to an existing lodge at the club demonstrates the versatility of a modular approach. “The off-site construction meant minimal disturbance to the grounds and it also meant that Castle Stuart were able to see and approve the finished article ahead of installation.”

Forestry

The Truck Loggers Association congratulates Premier Christy Clark and Minster Steve Thomson on bringing the Great Bear Rainforest Land Use Order into being. “I commend Premier Clark and Minister Thomson on this landmark agreement,” said David Elstone, RPF, TLA Executive Director. “Our members are the economic backbone on BC’s coastal communities and they appreciate the certainty this agreement achieves.” … “A core belief of the TLA membership is that people who work in the forests should share in the prosperity,” said Elstone. “That’s why this agreement is so important.”

FPB welcomes new General Counsel

BC Forest Practices Board

February 2, 2016

Category: Forestry

Region: Canada, Canada West

The Board is very pleased to welcome Mark Haddock to the organization as General Counsel. Mark brings over 30 years’ experience in the forestry and environmental sectors, including 27 years as a lawyer, 10 years as a law professor and 6 years as a part-time member of the Forest Practices Board. Mark has worked for the federal and provincial governments, environmental organizations, and post-secondary institutions, as well as in private practice. He has published papers on forestry-environmental topics, has litigation experience in administrative and court settings, and has a thorough understanding of forestry legislation in BC and the mandate of the Forest Practices Board.

On Monday, B.C.’s coastal forest industry celebrated signing the Great Bear Rainforest conservation agreement along with the region’s First Nations and environmental groups. But the companies involved don’t have a lot of time to rest on their laurels. The deal offers the forest licensees certainty around access to an annual harvest of 2.5 million cubic metres of timber for the next 10 years, but to access it they must now craft specific plans that spell out how they will meet 8,000 targets to preserve ecological and cultural objectives across some 143 landscapes within the sprawling 6.4-million-hectare region. “So there’s a lot of work to be done,” said Rick Jeffery, CEO of the Coast Forest Products Association, and chief negotiator for the industry’s association, the Coast Forest Conservation Initiative.

Vaughn Palmer: How it became the Great Bear Rainforest

February 3, 2016

Category: Forestry

Region: Canada, Canada West

VICTORIA – This week’s landmark agreement to preserve a huge tract of the B.C. coastal forest had its beginnings in words scratched on a tablecloth in a San Francisco restaurant some 20 years ago. “We were sitting around at dinner one night in a cheap Italian restaurant with a bottle of great wine,” wrote activist Tzeporah Berman in This Crazy Time, her 2011 memoir of her days with Greenpeace and the environment movement. “We needed a name that immediately defined the area. We wanted people to hear the name and be mad as hell that anybody could turn it into toilet paper.”

Peter Foster: No peace in the Great Bear Rainforest

The GBR agreement appears to legitimize misinformation and intimidation as bargaining tools

National Post

February 2, 2016

Category: Forestry

Region: Canada, Canada West

Monday’s agreement on “protection” for B.C.’s so-called Great Bear Rainforest (GBR) is being sold as a shining example of reasonable and responsible compromise between the economy and the environment; a model in which government, aboriginal groups, industry and environmental NGOs hammered out a plan that was good for all involved. There is no doubt that this vast area — covering 6.4 million hectares of the coast from the north of Vancouver Island to the southern tip of Alaska — is spectacularly beautiful, and home to charismatic animals such as the Kermode or “Spirit” bear, a black bear that, due to a genetic mutation, is white. The deal itself, however, is far from black and white.

Vancouver wildlife biodiversity strategy approved by park board

CBC News

February 2, 2016

Category: Forestry

Region: Canada, Canada West

The Vancouver Park Board has voted unanimously in favour of a biodiversity strategy that will see 25 hectares of “natural area” in the city restored or enhanced by 2020. There are 20 at-risk species in the city according to the park board, which considers its new strategy a “legacy piece” that will ensure future generations can enjoy the biodiversity of Vancouver’s forests, shorelines, and marshes. “Somebody needs to do it. I would hate to be living in a city in 20 years when these natural areas are not here,” said Sarah Kirby-Yung, the chair of the Vancouver park board.

How Canada’s ‘spirit bear’ forest deal could be a model

Christian Science Monitor

February 2, 2016

Category: Forestry

Region: Canada, Canada West

Competing forest interests in western Canada reached a landmark deal after negotiating for years. The parties say their agreement could provide a model for other communities. It took more than 10 years of terse negotiating, protests, and debate, but a deal emerged for a Canadian rainforest that analysts are calling not only a job well done, but also a model for the world. The deal announced Monday in British Columbia restricts and regulates logging in the Great Bear Rainforest to help protect the forest’s rare “spirit bear” and the area’s native people, the BBC reported. “I think everybody grew up, and they realized conflict wasn’t going to be the way forward,” Mr. Jeffery told The Christian Science Monitor in a phone interview.

15 % of the forest will be open to logging, under stringent standards according to the agreement

CBC News

February 2, 2016

Category: Forestry

Region: Canada, Canada West

The Great Bear Rainforest agreement is a victory for everyone involved, including the forest industry, said its members after yesterday’s announcement signaled that 15 per cent of the forest was open to logging. …”It provides a certainty,” said Rick Jeffery, president and CEO of Coast Forest Products Association. “Knowing that we have access to that, knowing what the running rules are to operate there, provides us the platform to be able to invest in our workers in our communities, in our facilities, to be able to move the industry forward.” …Jeffery, who was the chief negotiator for the forest companies in the deal, says the agreement, “one of the most complex deals you can imagine,” boiled down to two goals.

Great Bear Rainforest Agreement Signed

The Castlegar Source

February 2, 2016

Category: Forestry

Region: Canada, Canada West

First Nations governments and the BC government, with the support of ForestEthics Solutions, Greenpeace, Sierra Club BC and five forestry companies, have announced the fulfilment of the Great Bear Rainforest Agreements. Eighty-five percent (3.1 million hectares) of the remote wilderness region’s coastal temperate rainforests are now permanently off-limits to industrial logging. The remaining 15 percent (550,000 hectares) of the forest will be subject to the most stringent commercial logging legal standards in North America. First Nations oversight of their lands has been strengthened and new community development opportunities negotiated as a result of the government-to-government implementation process.

First Nation forestry venture rolls out new equipment, supply contracts

By Ian Ross

Northern Ontario Business

February 2, 2016

Category: Forestry

Region: Canada East, Canada

An Ojibway community on the north shore of Lake Superior is carving out a path to prosperity in forestry. Biigtigong Nishnaabeg (formerly Pic River First Nation) has taken possession of new European-made harvesting equipment to launch a forestry company to start harvesting off its traditional land this winter. Coupled with that is the news of secured contracts to start supplying two area forestry mills with wood. Under the banner of Mkwa Timber, the band’s fledgling forestry company, two harvesters were purchased from Ponsse of Finland, a leading international forestry machine manufacturer.

U.S. Forest Service hiring 500 employees for non-fire-related seasonal jobs

FOX21News

February 2, 2016

Category: Forestry

Region: United States, US West

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – The Rocky Mountain Region of the U.S. Forest Service is hiring temporary employees for various positions across 17 national forests and seven national grasslands located in Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota and Wyoming. Temporary positions are available in a variety of occupations, including trails, forestry, engineering, wildlife, recreation, fisheries, archaeology and administrative support. The hiring phase will be Feb. 2-8 for seasonal, non-fire positions.

UM scientist gains national attention for research on beetles The Missoulian

The Missoulian

February 2, 2016

Category: Forestry

Region: United States, US West

The mountain pine beetles pinned inside Diana Six’s lab in the Bioresearch Building on campus are little, the size of Tic Tacs. The research the University of Montana professor of forest entomology and pathology is doing on the insects is big. In fact, the work coming out of the College of Forestry and Conservation has the potential to affect forests around the world. Six, chair of the department of ecosystems and conservation sciences, fell in love with beetles and fungi as a child wandering the woods in the chaparral in Southern California. …In the past couple of years, she developed a new hypothesis related to the effect the beetles are having on forests in the face of climate change.

4FRI gets $10 million boost from Forest Service

Arizona Daily Sun

February 2, 2016

Category: Forestry

Region: United States, US West

The Forest Service has announced plans to inject millions of additional dollars into northern Arizona’s Four Forest Restoration Initiative to help accelerate work on the 2.4 million-acre forest health project. That’s in addition to several other shifts the agency is making on how it offers up 4FRI logging and stewardship contracts to timber operators across the region. Starting this year, the Forest Service plans to allocate an additional $10 million per year for 10 years to the four forests working on 4FRI, said Scott Russell, a Forest Service employee who is serving in a newly created 4FRI chief executive position. That’s a 40 percent increase over 4FRI’s current $25 million budget.

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. —An invasive beetle and related fungus have been detected in Arkansas, and pose a threat to some Arkansas trees, according to a press release from the Arkansas Forestry Commission. The Redbay Ambrosia Beetle is a small dark brown-to-black, cylinder shaped beetle, and Laurel wilt disease is a fungus that blocks the movement of nutrients and water to parts of trees. Both pose a threat to Arkansas sassafras trees, which are common in Northwest Arkansas. The bug is native to the Far East and was first discovered in the U.S. in Georgia in 2002. It can carry the fungus, which causes stems and leaves of the tree to wilt.

Bills To Limit State Forest Logging Will Not Advance

Indiana Public Radio

February 1, 2016

Category: Forestry

Region: US East, United States

Efforts to limit logging in Indiana’s state forests have once again failed to advance at the statehouse. Two bills didn’t make it out of committee last week. In previous legislative sessions, bills limiting logging in state forests have been stalled in committee with a lot of GOP opposition. This year, advocates were hoping for a change. “The DNR is adamant that they should not receive a hearing. [They] could care less whether there’s bipartisan support for them or not. They don’t want the issues even discussed,” says Jeff Stant, Director of the Indiana Forest Alliance. He says even though the bills were authored by Republicans this time, they didn’t get a hearing. He’s worried forests will be completely logged without legislation. “The clock’s ticking,” Stant says. “In another decade we’ll have lost just about all these majestic forests.”

Vermont holds hearing on proposed logging practices change

Associated Press in WRAL

February 2, 2016

Category: Forestry

Region: US East, United States

RUTLAND, Vt. — Vermont is taking public comment on a proposed rule change for logging practices. The state’s water quality law, passed last year, requires the commissioner of the Department of Forest, Parks and Recreation to amend the accepted management practices for logging operations to ensure they are designed to prevent or minimize discharges of sediment, petroleum products, and woody debris from entering streams and other waters. Any changes must also make sure that logging operations are designed to improve soil health of forestland; protect aquatic habitat and aquatic wildlife; and prevent erosion and maintain natural water temperature

New environmental observation methods see the forest for the trees

Michigan State University

February 2, 2016

Category: Forestry

Region: International

A marriage in the remote forests of China promises to unite two important forces to better inform the health and future of biodiversity. The union is reported in this week’s journal Ecological Indicators by Michigan State University researchers. The marriage is between powerful data – the big-picture spaceship view of the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer, or MODIS, which sweeps the Earth’s entire surface every one to two days, and Landsat, which focuses on smaller pieces of land, but only produces pictures every 16 days. Like the best marriages, this combination in essence completes the view.

Tree felling rampant at govt forest in Mymensingh

The Daily Star (Bangladesh)

February 3, 2016

Category: Forestry

Region: International

Trees are allegedly being felled in the forests in Bhaluka upazila of Mymensingh district and processed at sawmills located nearby. Over 50 sawmills are located in the forest areas of the upazila, including 12 adjacent to the National Park at Kadirgrah, locals said. Having an alleged nexus with a section of officials and employees of the forest department, unscrupulous people have been plundering gazari and akashmoni trees in Bhaluka forest, they said. The destruction of trees has driven away forest wildlife due to loss of their habitats, locals said.

EU-funded deforestation clampdown in Africa ‘flawed’

Climate Home

February 3, 2016

Category: Forestry

Region: International

Major donors are working with African governments to cordon off vast tracts of forest like it’s 1872. Germany, Norway and bodies like the World Bank are using a model dating back to the creation of the US’ Yellowstone National Park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Liberia. That might work for uninhabited wilderness, an NGO that campaigns for land rights told Climate Home, but not for these populous tropical forests. Andy White at the Washington DC-based Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI) warned that hundreds of thousands of people could be resettled and lose their livelihoods under the proposals. In a series of reports published on Wednesday, the organisation raised concerns about these states’ main contribution to tackling climate change.

To celebrate St Valentine’s Day, Forestry Commission England has revealed their top 10 reasons why they love trees, along with the top 10 most romantic walks from across the public forest estate. The poet Joyce Kilmer once wrote “I think that I shall never see a poem lovely as a tree…” and here at Forestry Commission England we find it hard to disagree. Trees mean something to everyone; and with the myths, fairy tales, and history that surrounds them, we believe it makes woods and forests some of the most romantic places on earth. Below are our ten favourite reasons to love trees, we hope you love them too! …10. Around 1,500 wildlife species are thought to rely on a single English oak tree, for breeding, feeding, resting, roosting, shelter and safety.

Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy

Energy & timber set for win-win (scroll down for article)

Consortium to brainstorm how to turn excess biomass into fuels

University of Minnesota Duluth

February 1, 2016

Category: Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy

Region: US East, United States

Watch the news and you’ll understand why the U.S. Forest Service is actively seeking uses for timber. This year was record-breaking for wildfire danger and damage in the U.S. Add to that 1.5 million acres of beetle-killed lodgepole pine in Colorado and Wyoming that are a tinderbox poised for flame. Fire is a potential danger wherever timber and slash stand too long in dry, hot environments. But there are ways to turn that situation into a win-win-win scenario. A group of stakeholders [see list] is funding a new Consortium for Advanced Wood to Energy Solutions.

General

Vaughn Palmer: How it became the Great Bear Rainforest

February 3, 2016

Category: Uncategorised

VICTORIA – This week’s landmark agreement to preserve a huge tract of the B.C. coastal forest had its beginnings in words scratched on a tablecloth in a San Francisco restaurant some 20 years ago. “We were sitting around at dinner one night in a cheap Italian restaurant with a bottle of great wine,” wrote activist Tzeporah Berman in This Crazy Time, her 2011 memoir of her days with Greenpeace and the environment movement. “We needed a name that immediately defined the area. We wanted people to hear the name and be mad as hell that anybody could turn it into toilet paper.”